Shaping Our Energy Future, EirGrid Report

Ireland’s energy production needs to adapt, energy grid operator EirGrid created a report seeking feedback in a consultation process, detailing innovative approaches to developing a grid to meet the 2030 renewable energy targets.

“Shaping Our Energy Future“, launched by Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan, details four approaches necessary to reach these emission targets.

EirGrid’s findings

1. Generation-Led, Government policy would influence where renewable energy is generated, favouring locations where the grid is already strong.

2. Developer-Led, in this approach, we continue to connect new sources of renewable electricity as requested in any location. 3. Technology-Led, this approach uses technical solutions to make the grid more resilient so it can better handle the variable nature of renewable energy.

4. Demand-Led, Government policy determines where large energy users end up in Ireland. The report notes that for successful future would probably come from a combination of the approaches listed.

Any future grid will have to be heavily technologically orchestrated, to cope with the variability of renewable energy sources (RES), as well as demand monitoring and management, micro-generation and core generation management. Wind power, Ireland’s most prominent RES, is not available everywhere and so siting of some new generation capacity will have to be in areas not currently used.

Offshore, particularly floating winding generation capacity is growing and will likely feature more in future energy plans. New legislative and regulatory frameworks will also be needed to facilitate at least some of these developments.

In the combination of these approaches Ireland will be able to meet 70% RES by 2030, and net-zero carbon by 2050. Furthermore, with the help of the expanding data centre sector, it can become a centre for best practice and can be used as an example for other countries.

EirGrid notes that there are still issues to address as well, firstly, data centres currently rely heavily on diesel fuel for on-site generation. They are used as a backup, or emergency supplemental capacity, diesel-powered generators are high emission sources that need to be removed.

Alternatives such as biogas, bioethanol and fuel cell technology, combined with alternative generation technologies, can notably reduce emissions caused by onsite generation. Furthermore, this energy capacity from low or no-carbon methods could be fed back to the grid when required providing a stabilising influence for future mixed generation efforts.

The development of RES has been particularly driven by the demand from users such as data centres. However, instead of just creating demand, some operators have gone further and supported the development of new RES capacity.

One example is Amazon’s funding of a 23.2MW wind farm in Cork which will support its €350 million facility in Drogheda. This sets an important precedent for other operators and the industry as a whole.

It goes towards aiding the concerns that the expected data centre demand will consume the bulk of RES in the future, potentially pushing for fewer emissions friendly sources among other consumers. Once available, a lot of RES will be made available through Power purchase agreements (PPA).

EirGrid notes PPA are not new in the Irish market, there is work to be done to ensure that agreements meet the needs of corporate and industrial (C&I) users. According to Accenture, greater flexibility is needed between generators and C&I users to ensure the needs of both are met in terms of pricing, duration of agreements and the management of associated risks.

As Ireland moves towards its 70% RES by 2030, more will be needed to support grid developments and management. New technology is being developed by manufacturers will see the vast battery structure held by data centres playing an important role in facilitating a RES dominated supply.

The battery infrastructure on which data centres rely as an uninterruptible power source is being enabled to provide a balancing effect for RES. Ultimately, data centres and other large energy consumers will soon be able to store surplus power and feed it back to the grid when required.

Overall, this comes under the term distributed energy resources (DER) and is a vital function for any grid that relies heavily on RES, and would have to be built out by the grid operator in any case. Data centres and other major consumers, through regular equipment upgrade cycles, can implement these emerging technologies and play a key role in enabling RES implementation and new capacity.

On top of that, microgrid technology will allow on-site generation to supply capacity back to the grid, providing opportunities for grid and data centre operators. There is also no way to escape the fact that these data centres have a large physical footprint.

New work with various groups such as Host In Ireland, has seen designs emerge that encourage wildlife and pollinators. Vertical and horizontal surfaces can be planted with indigenous species to provide both food and habitats for bird and insects, open spaces can be rewilded, providing water habitats too.

These techniques, combined with reduced water consumption, not only reduce the overall impact on the immediate environment but can contribute significantly to biodiversity in the area. Finally, data centres will be key hubs of data storage and processing for the vast amount of information that will generate new smart grid technologies. Edge computing will be a vital part of the new energy infrastructure.

For example, a remote wind farm will generate a large amount of data on performance, energy flows, weather conditions and environmental monitoring. An edge computing approach would see initial data processed on-site. Then a reduced data set is sent to a central processing facility, like a data centre, where it can be fully analysed and acted upon.

Data centres, and their associated communications infrastructure, can ensure that only what is need can be done on-site before providing the capacity necessary to fully process the data set to derive the intelligence to inform management and planning systems.

What is clear is that the EirGrid consultation process is an important opportunity for data centre sector stakeholders to contribute to a clean energy future for Ireland. It is also an opportunity to make Ireland an example for other countries, large and small, in integrating the data centre sector with a modern, net-zero carbon energy system.

In contributing experience, insight and intelligence to the consultation process, the data centre sector has work to do to improve its own performance, integrate more fully with the environment, and ensure that its development aligns with the goals of the society in which it resides.

Minister Eamon Ryan, speaking on EirGrid’s report said, “In the coming decades we will be electrifying large parts of our economy, including our heating and transport systems, so building a grid that can handle a high level of renewables will be critical to our success. Shaping Our Electricity Future will go a long way towards Ireland’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and I look forward to seeing the outcome of the public consultation.”